A FARMER from Dorset has been ordered to pay more than £6,000 after slurry polluted a stream.

Mark Pearson, of Hanford Farm in Hanford near Blandford Forum, appeared before Taunton Magistrates on Wednesday (November 20) after admitting an offence of causing pollution to enter a freshwater stream at a court hearing.

The 64-year-old was fined £2,500 as well as ordered to pay £4,007.20 costs, plus a victim surcharge of £170.

The case was bought about by the Environment Agency. An agency officer was walking his dog in January 2019, and noticed what appeared to be slurry in a stream. He traced the runoff to a field at Hanford Farm and took photographs as evidence. 

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In a later interview, Pearson admitted that slurry spreading at the farm had caused pollution. 

Magistrates were told there had been seven previous pollution incidents involving the farm since 2012 and, despite the need to have five months’ slurry storage facilities, there was only two months’ storage at the farm.

Pearson agreed to an Enforcement Undertaking, which is an alternative penalty to formal court proceedings. And so he paid a contribution to the National Trust of £2,000 as a result. 

However, while the Environment Agency contacted him several times, no date was secured for the completion of a slurry lagoon, which was also a condition of the Enforcement Undertaking, and so the agency charged him with a criminal offence instead.

Chris Westcott, from the Environment Agency, said: “Enforcement Undertakings provide an opportunity for polluters to pay for environmental projects as an alternative to court proceedings.

"Though Mr Pearson was offered the opportunity to avoid a criminal conviction, he chose to ignore that leading to today’s hearing.”